Image credit: World Rowing
Hot on the heels of World Cup 1 comes the European Championships, this year being held at Szeged, Hungary’s third largest city. It’s the first time this course has hosted a major senior championships. The European Olympic Qualifying Regatta is also being held at the same time (for the singles, light doubles and PR1 singles) which has impacted on the entries for the Euro Champs.
So here’s my look at the ones to watch in each of the Olympic-class boats.
Entries: 10
2023 Champion: Karolien Florijn (NED)
Entries for this year’s Europeans are probably the weakest these championships have ever seen. It’s the first time since the event was reintroduced in 2007 that there are no World Championship medallists competing.
The form sculler amongst the depleted entries is probably Alexandra Foester of Germany. The 22-year-old has been Germany’s representative in the W1X since 2021 and was U23 World Champion in 2021 and 2022. On the senior circuit she has World Cup golds from WC3 in 2022 and WC2 last year. She won bronze at the Europeans and at the Worlds placed eighth overall. She raced in Varese, finishing in an excellent silver medal position behind the unstoppable Florijn.
The top performer at last year’s World Championships was the fifth-placed Desislava Angelova of Bulgaria. She’s raced at the last four European Championships and her best result was fourth last season.
Another A-Final finisher from last year’s World Championships is Viktorija Senkute of Lithuania. She’s raced the single at both the 2021 and 2022 Europeans but didn’t progress beyond the B-Final on either occasion. At a World Championship level she placed seventh in the W4X in 2022 and produced the best performance of her career to reach the A-Final last year.
Switzerland is represented by Aurelia-Maxima Katharina Janzen. The 20-year-old made a big impact on the world scene in 2021, winning the junior world title and U23 silver in the same season. She followed that up with a second U23 silver medal in 2022 and then a World Cup silver medal in her senior debut in 2023. Last season also saw her win silver at the European Championships and take the U23 World title. At the senior Worlds she struggled a little (by her own high standards), ending up fifth in the B-Final and 11th overall. She had a slightly underwhelming start to the season in Varese, missing the A-Final and placing second in the B-Final for eighth overall.
Ninth place at the world Championships last season was good enough for Jovanna Arsic to qualify the boat for Paris. She raced in the single in Tokyo, placing 15th, and since the Olympics her best result was a bronze medal at last year’s Europeans. She didn’t race in Varese but did compete in Piediluco, winning on both days.
Belgium is represented by Mazarine Guilbert, who celebrates her 22nd birthday during the regatta. She makes her senior debut in Hungary following two years on the U23 team, finishing fourth in the BW1X last year. She also raced at Piediluco, finishing fifth
Italy hasn’t qualified this boat for an Olympics since Beijing, and it remains to be seen if they send a competitor to the Final Olympic Qualifying regatta in Lucerne next month. That may depend on how their sculler, Laura Meriano, fares in Szeged. She spent the first half of her career in the sweep team, winning U23 gold n the BW4+ in 2019 and was sixth in the W2- at the 2020 Europeans. Last year she switched to the sculling squad, racing in the W4X that placed fourth at the Europeans and then ninth at the World Championships. She also raced in the quad in Varese, finishing sixth.
You have to go back even further to find the last time Romania had a W1X racing at the Olympics, all the way back to Atlanta in 1996. As with the Italians, it remains to be seen if they want to try and qualify for Paris. Their representative in Szeged is Andrada-Maria Morosanu. The 22-year-old is a two-time U23 World Champion and sculled in the W4X that finished seventh at last season’s Europeans and sixth at the Worlds.
Ukraine’s representative is Diana Serebrianska. She was tenth in Varese and 23rd in the world last season. She also raced in the W2X at both the 2022 and 2023 Europeans, finishing eighth and tenth respectively.
The final sculler in the event is Czechia’s Alice Prokesova. She made her international debut last season racing in the W2X with Michala Pospisilova, placing 11th at the Europeans and ending the season with a 17th-place at the Lucerne World Cup.
Prediction
Whilst not a particularly high quality field there should still be some good racing. Foester of Germany is the form athlete and I’m going with her to win Germany’s first ever European W1X title. In silver I’m going for Arsic of Serbia and in bronze Angelova of Bulgaria.
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